Shower head with decalcification by deflecting elastic nozzles

ABSTRACT

A shower head with a spray plate mounted on the housing has water passage openings and a further plate made of elastic material which has openings coaxial to the water passage openings. The further plate is fitted over the outside of the spray plate which presses against it. Nozzle projections with exit openings are formed coaxial with respect to the openings which have a smaller diameter than the water passage openings.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a national phase of PCT/EP93/02895 filed 20 Oct.1993 and based, in turn, on Austrian national application A2183/92 filed4 Nov. 1992 under the International Convention.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

My present invention relates to a shower head with a spray plate havingperforations for the passage of water and mounted in a housing.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In order to obtain a water jet which is pleasant to the skin with ashower head, the spray plate of the shower head can have many smallwater outlet openings. There is a problem with such shower heads becausedue to calcification or contamination the water passages can becomenarrowed or completely clogged, which results in uneven water jets andincorrect alignment of individual water jets.

Up to now this problem was solved mostly by chemical means, wherebyeither the shower head had to be kept for a long time in a decalcifyingsolution, or correspondingly more aggressive chemicals had to be used.These procedures are time consuming, are damaging especially to theplastic components of the shower head and are environmentally unsafe.Furthermore in cases of advanced calcification is not possible to removethe deposits completely. A mechanical approach is also known, whereinpins arranged on a plate are pressed from time to time through theopenings in the spray plate, thereby clearing these openings. If thepin-bearing plate is made an integral part of the shower head, thevolume and weight of the shower head are increased and the device forthe introduction of the pins into the openings of the spray plate alsobecomes subject to contamination and calcification. Due to the hardnessof the calcification and the fineness of the openings, high requirementshave to be met by the material of the pins, which in spite of a verysmall diameter are not allowed to bend.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

It is the object of the present invention to provide a shower head withan improved way of freeing the outlet of contamination and calciumdeposits in a simple, quick and environmentally friendly manner.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This object is attained by providing the spray plate with a furtherplate having nozzles coaxial to the water passage openings and made ofan elastic material, whereby the nozzles have exit openings which aresmaller than the water passage openings. The fineness of the jets isgiven by the size of the exit openings of the nozzles and the waterpassage openings in the spray plate can be selected so big that they areno longer clogged by contaminations or calcium deposits. In order toclean the nozzles made of an elastic material, they are bent back andforth several times, so that the hard deposits on the inner nozzle wallscrack up and are rinsed out by the passing water jet. The back-and-forthbending of the nozzles can be done by hand or also by using the showerhead with the projecting nozzles in the manner of a brush for bodymassages.

Advantageously in the shower head of the invention the further platewith the nozzles is made in one piece and of elastic material. It issimple to produce and avoids sealing problems.

Further each nozzle has an inner diameter which is bigger then thethickness of its walls, this way permitting an easy bending of thenozzle.

Furthermore according to a preferred embodiment the inner diameter ofthe nozzles widens under water pressure, so that already due to thepassage of the water, when the valve is fully opened, the hardcontaminations and calcium deposits crack and split off due to theexpansion of the inner nozzle wall.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The above and other objects, features, and advantages will become morereadily apparent from the following description, reference being made tothe accompanying drawing in which:

FIG. 1 is a cross sectional view through a shower head according to theinvention;

FIG. 2 is a detail view of a portion of the elastic plate showing one ofthe nozzles thereof;

FIG. 2A-2C are cross sectional views taken along the line II--II of FIG.2 showing various configurations of the interior passage of the nozzle;and

FIG. 3 is an elevational view of the shower head, showing the deflectionof the nozzle for decalcification.

SPECIFIC DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows a shower head according to the invention in longitudinalsection while FIG. 2 is an enlarged section of the plate with a nozzlein straight position and also shower various bent position, while FIG. 3shows the cleansing back-and-forth bending of the nozzle by hand.

As can be seen in FIG. 1 a spray plate 2 with water passage openings 3and a further plate 4 with nozzles 5 are inserted in a housing 1. Thewater passage openings 3 are large, in order to avoid their clogging bydirt and calcium deposits. The inner diameters of the nozzles 5 narrowdown towards their exit openings 6, which are small in comparison to thewater passage openings 3 and produce fine water jets which are pleasantto the skin.

If on the inner walls 7 of nozzles 5 deposits have formed, it issufficient to rub, for instance with the edge of the palm 8, as shown inFIG. 3, against the nozzles 5 and to apply pressure. This way thenozzles 5 are bent as indicated in FIG. 2 and the hard contaminationsand calcifications crack and split off the inner walls 7 of the nozzles5 and are rinsed out by the passing water. The cross section of thenozzle channel 9 can be as shown in FIG. 2 either circular IIa or alsosquare IIb, and is deformed to IIc during the bending of the nozzle 5.The bending of the nozzles 5 can also be achieved by pressing againstany surface. The shown shower head is also suitable for body massage,whereby the massaging effect is created on the one hand by the elasticnozzles 5 and on the other hand by the water jets. Preferably therebythe surrounding surface of the exit passages 6 of nozzles 5 is curved,as shown in FIG. 1. At the same time the pressure against the skincauses a cleansing of the nozzles 5 as previously described. Thematerial of the nozzles 5 should have corresponding elasticity and thewall thickness of nozzles 5 should not be too big, so that no sizableeffort has to be made for the cleansing of nozzles 5. As shown,advantageously the wall thickness of nozzles 5 should not be bigger thantheir inner diameter. With a corresponding material selection anddimensioning of the nozzles it is also possible to achieve a widening ofthe exit openings 6 due to water pressure, so that when the water flowsthrough the expanded inner walls 7 of nozzles 5 it already causes acracking and splitting of the hard deposits, thereby achieving acleaning effect.

I claim:
 1. A shower head comprising:a shower head housing connectableto a source of water; a spray plate in said housing having amultiplicity of water passage openings for discharging respectivestreams of water from said housing; and a further plate in said housinglying against said spray plate, formed of an elastic material, definingan outer face of said shower head, and provided with a multiplicity oflaterally deflectable unconfined nozzles projecting freely outwardlyfrom said face, and free to deflect laterally at junctions of saidnozzles with said plates, each of said nozzles being coaxially alignedwith a respective one of said openings for producing a respective jet ofwater, said nozzles having exit orifices which are smaller than saidwater passage openings, lateral deflection of said nozzles by a userbreaking up calcification in said nozzles.
 2. The shower head defined inclaim 1 wherein each of said nozzles has an inner diameter greater thana wall thickness of the respective nozzle.
 3. The shower head defined inclaim 1 wherein each of said nozzles is constructed and arranged so thatan inner diameter thereof expands under water pressure.